What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

[Vince]

1) Get a real Center... An athletic one who can finish but can also play defense. We saw that the Suns play no interior D. Amare can't play that position as he's not fully committed on D yet. Plus, Nash lets his man into the lane at will. So much that it becomes laughable. I would suggest either Drafting Channing Frye(Trading up) or keeping Steven Hunter and making him the full time Center(He did preety well vs Duncan using his length)

2) Get a Defensive point...Steve Nash is brutal on D. Cause of this, bigs have to rotate all the time and consequently, they are in horrible position to get defensive rebounds. Which is why SA dominated the offensive glass so badly

3) Bench Q...I'll be blunt, I hate his game...Stand on the 3pt line, jack up shot, after shot, after shot, after shot. I think he's more suited being a spark plug shooter off the bench ala Brent Barry, plus you need to accomodate the new center and you aint benching JJ. He has athleticism, but seems reluctant to use it.

4) Make a better commitment to D. As someone pointed out, they have the athletes, they just need to be willing to do so. Sacrificing 6pts on O and putting that unused effort on the defensive side won't hurt.

5) Bench play. It was clear PHX's bench was a joke with journeymen and guys who were there only to there write blogs. They need some fire power. I'd suggest doing a sign and trade and trying to get a guy like Bobby Simmons or Chris Duhon who's a great perimeter defender. Gary Payton will be available. If he wouldn't mind only playing 20 minutes a game, bring him in with the MLE.

Having said all that, great season by the Suns. They brought back the fast break, a few tweaks here and there and they will be a championship team IMO.

[3rdAnswer]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

I agree with it all.

The biggest thing to me is that they need 1 or 2 people to come off the bench simply to stop the best wing scorer on the opposing team

[RubenDouglas]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

how bout not having one of your main starters get injured.

that was huge for phoenix...

a healthy phoenix dominates everyone, defense or no defense.

[remix]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

how bout not having one of your main starters get injured.

that was huge for phoenix...

a healthy phoenix dominates everyone, defense or no defense.

No need for excuses, San Antonio is a flat out a better team than the Suns

[TheMatrix31]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

Thank you, Ruben. The Suns couldve EASILY won this series, if a few chips fell the other way. The Spurs should be lucky they even came away 4-1...

The starters need to be healthy. Thats just huge. We need a bench just to back up the starters in case of injury, they dont need to be a big factor if starters arent hurt. If Marion and Q had even DECENT series', the lack of a bench wouldn't have a lick of importance.

I think we need a real center not b/c things the C will do.....but rather to move Amare to his natural position and shift everyone else back. It allows everyone to play more comfortably, and for Amare to hopefully add some longevity to his career.

I'm really surprised Q wasnt benched in favor of Jim Jackson once Joe Johnson came back. The guy did nothing in the Spurs series, and he mightve been better off the bench.

We just have to cut down on those damn offensive rebounds the Spurs kept getting. I wish there was some sort of rebound specialist out there. If it wasnt for those damn offensive rebounds the Spurs kept getting, we wouldve had an even better chance to win.

Everyone says the Spurs are the better TEAM than the Suns. How? The Suns played like crap the first 3 games, led going into the fourth quarter in 3 out of 5 games, Joe Johnson was out for two games, Shawn Marion and Quentin were ICE cold, and the Spurs STILL had to play PERFECT basketball in the fourth quarter to BARELY edge out the Suns in games 1, 2, and 5. Hell, they even couldve lost game 3 had it not been for Duncan's Godlike FT performance. More disciplined? Better execution? Maybe.....but dont tell me the Spurs were clearly the BETTER team. I dont buy it one bit. The Spurs should've blown us out in most of the games the way we played, if they are so much better.

Great season. I say add one more guy, and play defense like the last two games, and we're in the Finals.

[SPTO]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

I think they just need some small pieces. A couple backups who can play defense would be good for them.

I also think that they should try to play some more defense once in a while. I admire and love the style of ball they play but If they put just half the effort that they do on offense on the defensive side of the court then they can be in the Finals next year.

[4BiddenKnight]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

What the Suns need is to learn from this series vs the Spurs. If they learn that hard nose D is more important than their run n gun, they're bound to be more successful.

What they also need is anyone from the bench that can contribute by scoring, playing D, rebounding, etc. I can't see anything good from their bench. That's one of the reason why the Spurs killed the Suns this series is their bench contribution (Barry, Horry).

[nkhera1]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

how bout not having one of your main starters get injured.

that was huge for phoenix...

a healthy phoenix dominates everyone, defense or no defense.

You can't always rely on that and injuries always happen and you have to be able to deal with them. San Antonio was just a better team but the Suns were close and I hope they can make this a rivalry.

As for what the Suns need.

1. I want to trade Q. All he does is shoot 3's. He doesn't post up anymore, can't finish, can't pull up for a mid-range, doesn't post up anymore, and doesn't really play the greatest defense. I admit I thought he was pretty good during the regular season but the playoffs exposed him. Hopefully he can work on his game.
2. Keep Joe Johson. This is a must as he was our 3rd best player in the series and with a healthy Joe I think we could have made a better push.
3. Start Hunter. He is a good defender and shot blocker plus he seems to have decent speed for a Center, but then we will lose some of our speed which made our run-and-gun attack so great but its a sacrafice we have to make.
4. Beef up the bench. We need one more good perimeter player and 1 or 2 more big bodies.
5. Focus on defense. This team is athletic enough for the most part to play solid defense, but you just need to committ to it.
6. Have Amare improve. This guy can be an absolute beast especially when he improves a few more aspects of his game.

Also I disagree with not using Nash. This guy is one of the best players in the league. He makes Phoenix so much better and I will gladly accept his lack of defense in exchange for his other aspects. Besides how many good defensive point guards are there?

[Vince]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

Also I disagree with not using Nash. This guy is one of the best players in the league.

Not use him?Are you kidding me? I just said to get a defensive point guard to be a bench player to hel Nash.

[Vince]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

Also I disagree with not using Nash. This guy is one of the best players in the league.

Not use him? Are you kidding me? I just said to get a defensive point guard to be a bench player to hel Nash.

[Fierce2k4]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

I wouldnt bench Q, I would just utilize his other offensive capabilities. With the clippers he played the post alot and then shot the 3 as a second option. I have no idea why the suns only use him as a 3 point shooter when he is much more versatile then that.

[dbdynsty25]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

I wouldnt bench Q, I would just utilize his other offensive capabilities. With the clippers he played the post alot and then shot the 3 as a second option. I have no idea why the suns only use him as a 3 point shooter when he is much more versatile then that.

Because when you stick him down in the post, you're taking away your best scoring option down there...Amare. You want to space the floor for him so that he has some room to maneuver. Q should do his post up thing when Amare is resting...otherwise, get out of the way.

[ajaxab]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

Everyone says the Spurs are the better TEAM than the Suns. How? The Suns played like crap the first 3 games, led going into the fourth quarter in 3 out of 5 games, Joe Johnson was out for two games, Shawn Marion and Quentin were ICE cold, and the Spurs STILL had to play PERFECT basketball in the fourth quarter to BARELY edge out the Suns in games 1, 2, and 5. Hell, they even couldve lost game 3 had it not been for Duncan's Godlike FT performance. More disciplined? Better execution? Maybe.....but dont tell me the Spurs were clearly the BETTER team. I dont buy it one bit. The Spurs should've blown us out in most of the games the way we played, if they are so much better.

This kind of logic is always interesting to me. The Suns are the better team because they lost this series 4-1? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You said it yourself that the Spurs played perfect basketball in the fourth quarter in games 1,2 and 5. If the Suns were the better team, then maybe they should have been able to play perfect basketball themselves and prevent S.A. from doing so. Better teams have the ability to get to this level of perfection and the Suns simply couldn't do it this year. They will no doubt learn from this experience, but a better team does not lose a series in 5 games. If they'd lost in 7, I could see this argument being made, but losing in 5. Just doesn't make sense.

[tenth]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

This kind of logic is always interesting to me. The Suns are the better team because they lost this series 4-1? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Saying the Spurs weren't clearly the better team is not the same as saying the Suns are the better team, and he never used the logic you're saying he did here (better because they lost).

[Kashanova]

Re: What the Suns need to do to get back to the WCF and win it....

They should try to get ratliff. curry, chandler, dalembert, one of these 4 would do good all good athlethic shot blockers and with decent speed and a post presence. For the Draft they should go and see if Johan Petro falls down to the 21st pick he would do good a 7 footer with good speed, ike digou could do good also and for the back up point guard, if A.Daniels doesnt take the option it would make him a free agent and they can probably pick him up, mighty mouse is also a free agent, Marko Jaric is a restricted free agent but he's probably worth a look 6'7 good vision, good speed, has good conditioning, and last but not least i hear that Sarunas Jasikevicius is coming to the nba and we all know what he can do